Don’t neglect the text

Lately, in my work, I’ve seen a lot of beautifully designed websites, shops, and apps. However a majority of them are lacking a major component. TEXT!

They aren’t going to read it anyway!

When I see posts on Reddit asking for a review of a shop, the poster almost always asking “How does it look?”. If I mention the text, or lack thereof often I’m rebuked with “They aren’t going to read it anyway!”.

It seems to be a fairly common misconception that intelligence is being drained away by the internet and people have all but given up reading in favor of digesting YouTube videos.

The myth is further perpetuated by TL;DR tags. This is in reality just a good way to give a site visitor a summary of the longer text.

People do Read!

How do I know people still read?

You are reading this right now

Amazon pays me every month for my e-book sales

While YouTube ranks #2, Google search is still #1

The advantages of online text

Traffic

A site without traffic isn’t much use. While you can use ads, or social media to help drive traffic, text can help bring search engine traffic to your site. The more words you have on your site, the more the search engines like Google, have to work with.

Search engine traffic can be very valuable because it only brings visitors to your site who are searching for something. If they are searching for your product and find it, they are much more likely to buy rather than just happening to see it on Facebook or Instagram.

Appearance

A site without words often looks thrown together and incomplete. It can look lazy not to have much text. Many people upon seeing beautiful images will want a story to go with it.

Trust

Lots of text, such as in a blog can help visitors to your site learn more about you. It gives them an idea of who you are and what you are about. As they get to know more about you, they may be more likely to buy what you are offering.